Mountain View Voice

Hospital expects a profitable 2013

El Camino is making too much money for a non-profit, union official says

by Nick Veronin

Officials with El Camino Hospital are expecting 2013 to be a good year with a $56 million profit for the Mountain View-based healthcare organization.

The hospital district's board of directors passed the budget unanimously at its June 19 meeting.

Hospital finance officials are budgeting to spend about $623.8 million on operations in the 2013 fiscal year, which is about $42.4 million less than El Camino expects to make in total operational revenue. After factoring in the approximately $13.5 million in investment income, the hospital should be in the black by about $56 million next year.

However, if the year goes anything like this past fiscal year, El Camino may be on track to deposit more than that. The hospital made nearly $25 million more than it budgeted during the fiscal year ending this month. According to hospital documents, as of April, the hospital is on track to finish out June with $60.2 million in net income — $24.9 million more than the $35.3 it budgeted for in June 2011.

That level of profit concerns Kary Lynch, a psychiatric technician and steward for the hospital's chapter of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers. "I'm perfectly willing to make concessions if it's financially necessary," Lynch said, referring to the cut in benefits the hospital imposed upon the SEIU-UHW in the past year.

"The goal of a non-profit is not to make as much money as you can," he said. "It's too much profit."

During his presentation to the hospital district's board of directors, El Camino's Chief Financial Officer Mike King did say the hospital is cognizant of its role as a non-profit and that in putting together the 2013 budget he and his team worked to keep the hospital's profit margin at or below 7 percent.

In order to bring the profit margin down, hospital spokeswoman Chris Ernst said funds were diverted into "major investments in our strategic plan, ... along with payroll benefit and medical supply inflation."